Chapter 61

I sucked in my breath as my heartbeat began an upward climb. “Bing,” I said. “What, uh, what are you doing here?”

He sat down on a chair around the kitchen table. “You got any coffee?” he asked. “It was a long drive up here.”

I gulped. He was smiling, but he didn’t look happy. Menacing would’ve been the word. Bing was a big man. I liked that before. In bed, I mean. Not so much in my kitchen, unannounced, before seven in the morning. “What are you doing here, Bing? Did you come to say goodbye?”

He chuckled. That too sounded menacing. “I thought we did that already, Jack. I said goodbye. I told you to drop the whole detective routine. Seems you just wouldn’t listen.”

I thought to run outside, but Ma and Dad would’ve been left alone with him then. Instead, I closed the door and started to make coffee, using the coffee maker that Ma always seemed to ignore. Maybe, I figured, I could make nice and get him to leave.

“I did drop it,” I told him. “I’m heading home in about an hour.”